


Anchor

by pseudofaux



Category: Samurai Love Ballad: PARTY
Genre: Aiming to eventually represent her country, And she's really good at it, F/M, Fancy Restaurant, Kageie's so loyal even the mention of 'Takeda' makes him cranky, MC is a swimmer, Modern AU, Read him as you please but I wrote Kageie as ND, neurodivergent character, red currant wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 20:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13818801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: A man pushes you up against a wall, and his mouth is so close to yours... And he ruins it by talking. But he doesn't ruin all of it. Not if you're willing to swim upstream a while and find a level you can both work from.





	1. You pin me against a wall, YOU say something!

**Author's Note:**

> I have several requests for Kageie smut that this will lead do, but this part of the story is set up fluff. Sluff. Consider this the get-together story of the Kageie x MC couple featured in [this (NSFW!) headcanon post ](http://pseudofaux.tumblr.com/post/169475859951/can-we-please-have-more-modern-headcanons-or-an).
> 
>  
> 
> With many respectful thanks to [haraya](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12061860) and [jem](https://jemchew.tumblr.com/post/170998685712/if-you-dont-have-too-many-requests-already-could) for their beautiful pieces featuring Kanetsugu and Kageie. If you have not already read them, go read them! If you have already read them, go read again and revel in those beautiful worrrrrrds!

Not quite home, but not at all far from my home, Kageie stopped our walk and _pushed_ me until my back hit a shop window. At first I thought he was pushing me out of the way of a dog or bicyclist or… something I hadn’t noticed. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize this was something else.

I blinked. He looked at me so dispassionately I started to think maybe there had been a dog. This dispassion, the sort of lazy half-interest, that’s what I was used to from him. This position he’d put us in, on the other hand, was the sort of romantic stunt I would never in a million years have predicted he’d indulge in. His mouth hovered so close to mine. There couldn’t be any doubt, right?

But he didn’t kiss me. He grumbled, “Well, say something.”

My face got hot.

“…What on earth am I supposed to say in this position?” I answered indignantly. He was sexy as hell but I wasn’t going to just go along with this! You pin me against a wall, _you_ say something!

He looked confused. Irritated, but mostly confused.

Slowly, he said “What you’re thinking,” as though it should have been obvious.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“You want to know what I’m thinking,” I said skeptically. You don’t want to… confess, or something? Sweep an eyelash off my cheek? Go in for a smooch?!

He nodded. His mouth looked unhappy, uncomfortable. He was still mostly looking at me, but his eyes kept sliding away and then zooming back to mine. It was sort of charming, despite how stressful the rest of this situation was turning out to be.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself of Kagetora’s cryptic-but-presumptuous warning from earlier that night: _You’ll need to be honest, blunt, even. You’ll have to open yourself up without much to show for it._ And I waited for Kageie’s eyes to come back.

“I think I want _you_ to be straight with _me_ ,” I told him. There! I’d said it! Honesty was the best policy.

His head cocked a bit to the side, letting the streetlight shine on his hair. It looked like something I’d seen at a gift shop on an out of town trip, beautiful milky quartz under a grimy yellow light. I’d wanted to right the stone then, set it somewhere safe and natural. I couldn’t do that at the time, but I could try now.

I wiggled a hand up between our bodies and pushed his opposite cheek up. Now the primary light on his hair was from the store sign above us, and it was one of the good ones, so the light shone cleanly. It made his hair dazzling, like sacred silt, like nickel. He was such a beautiful man, and his coloring was stunning.

Having fixed that small part of the universe, I decided to be a little more forthcoming. That was the advice I’d been given, after all. I thought. Kagetora was tricky like that. This thing with Kageie was frustrating and new but… I liked him, and I was attracted to him, and I wanted to see what happened.

“I can go first,” I offered when he was quiet. “Kageie, I am going to tell you how I feel and what I want, okay?”

He nodded.

“Okay then,” I said, mostly to myself. I’d take the lead, since I was sure of myself. I was okay with that. “I feel happy that you walked home with me. I like it when you seem comfortable, like you did around our friends tonight. I think you’re hot, and I want to be more intimate with you. But I don’t want to be intimate with someone who doesn’t share this kind of honesty with me.” I gestured between us for emphasis.

Kageie looked confused again. I think if my pulse hadn’t been so loud in my ears I might have been able to hear the creak of his gears turning.

“Why don’t you just ask me to kiss you?” he asked, sounding like he genuinely couldn’t puzzle it out.

“There’s wanting to kiss someone and there’s wanting to kiss someone,” I offered with a shrug.

“You just repeated yourself,” he said. AUGH. This close to him, his arms above and beside me—and I am not a short woman, not easy to cage in like that—it was too easy to forget who I was talking to. How strange, that closeness would confuse.

“Listen more closely!” I snapped. “I mean there’s wanting to kiss someone and then there’s wanting to kiss someone and feeling like it’s okay, like it’s a good idea.”

There was a beat, and then Kageie said, “You don’t think it’s a good idea to kiss me?”

Oh my god. Was that a little bit of hurt in his voice? Inflection?! I didn’t want him to be hurt but I couldn’t help but feel that we were getting somewhere, if there was feeling coloring his expression. If there was expression at all, frankly.

“I don’t _know_ if it’s a good idea to kiss you, Kageie,” I said, trying to go back to the simplicity of the bare truth. To be honest. Blunt. As I had been advised. I’d be giving Kagetora a piece of my mind at some point.

Kageie’s eyebrows came down, and his frown came up, and if things had just been easier between us I would have kissed him right then, he looked so cute; like a sensitive underwear model trying to solve the world’s problems. _Shut **up** , brain_. But things weren’t easy between us. So I rallied a smile I knew looked bummed, and pushed my arm against his so I could move away from the wall.

A part of me didn’t want to. _Wouldn’t it be fun_ , the ignoble thought came to me, _to stay, and by staying, almost certainly have sex with him tonight? See where it went?_

I pushed it aside like his arm, feeling glum.

“Can you tell me what you want?” I asked.

He was quiet a long time, still aside from rubbing the thumb and forefinger of one hand together. I told myself to clear my mind and count slowly. At fifteen, when I thought I might burst out of my skin if he didn’t dignify my question with some kind of response, he shook his head.

“Okay. That’s okay,” I said, for both of us. I hoped. “Thank you for answering me. I am… honestly, I’m disappointed, but I’m not… mad, or upset with you. I still want to be your friend. Do you still want to be my friend?”

“Yeah,” he said firmly.

“Okay,” I said again, for what felt like the millionth time, but this time with the zing of a smile. Hadn’t ruined everything! It was tiring to be so clear, to run so much of the conversation, but I liked him enough that his affirmative make me feel great.

I was not sure I could do this all the time. Laying myself and my intentions so bare felt weird. But… I did like him. I did want to kiss him. So maybe that meant I needed to put in this work and see what it got me. Got us.

“I’m going to walk this last block by myself. Will you text me when you get home?”

He was just looking at me. There was no sign he’d heard me.

“Kageie?” I asked after a minute.

“Yeah,” he said distractedly, awareness seeming to melt back into him, to put him back to his usual level of with-it.

“Yeah what?” I asked gently.

“Yeah, whatever.”

I shook my head, this time.

“I asked if you would text me when you get home. Will you?”

His eyes came back up to mine. Carnelian, gorgeous, captivating. Tempting. Very much with-it. Uh oh.

He held my gaze as he nodded and said in his low voice, “I will text you when I get home.”

“O-okay,” I said, chalking my inability to look away up to the exhaustion of my previous mental gymnastics. For just a minute I’d stay right here. I wouldn’t even dream. I’d just enjoy that color, that stunning color of his eyes.

“I’m going,” he said suddenly, and blinked, and I blinked, and I took a step back, and he did, too. I recognized defensiveness in myself and I felt like a hypocrite and a coward.

I managed to keep the “okay” in my mouth by pressing my lips into a firm line and nodding.

“I’ll be waiting for your text,” I said stiffly.

“Yeah,” he said, and turned and walked away. He did not look back.

* * *

 

**_I’m home_.**

**Cool. I’m glad. Thanks for letting me know.**

**_Are you my mom now?_ **

Cheeky!

**If I was your mother, believe me, I would have said something about your choice of song at karaoke.**

_**Whatever. What are you doing?** _

**I’m feeding my fish. Heating water for some tea.**

**_Fish?_ **

**Fish. I have a little tank. They’re colorful, and it’s easy to ask a neighbor to take care of them when I’m away for a few days.**

I kept my phone near me as I had tea and idly looked through a magazine, hoping for more from Kageie and trying to remember what Kagetora said: there wouldn’t be much to show for it. Eventually I realized it was too late to be doing this, sighed, and got ready for bed. I had practice in the morning.

As I was getting into bed my phone chimed clear in the quiet of the room.

**_Do they have names?_ **

I texted him the names of my fish, and fell asleep feeling my smile through my cheek on the pillow.


	2. Dates? Dates. They're dates, right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I mean how do you _know_ they're dates? You have to ask, right? Yes, you have to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly important context: narrator/MC is a cousin of Ai's mother, and her family connection to the Naoes are how she met the merry motley Uesugi crew in the first place. Like many fans I'm assuming Ai's mom has died (AUGH Kenshin route GET OUT OF MY TEAR DUCTS).

**What are you doing for lunch?**

_**Eating.** _

As I was telling myself not to sigh, I got another message.

**_A sandwich._ **

**Are you being literal or a smartass?**

_**Literal.** _

**_Maybe a smartass?_ **

**I’m free. Do you want to eat sandwiches together?**

I was across the street from the Uesugi building, people watching the doors because the tower went too high to look at comfortably. I could easily get a convenience store sandwich and a protein bar.

He was typing. There was a long pause. I had rolled my eyes at people who stared at their phone screens like this before countless times. Oh, how the mighty fall!

**Okay.**

The biggest grin split my face.

* * *

**_Kanetsugu is taking Ai to a kite festival at the big park south of the city_.**

**That’s sweet! Are you going in a group?**

**_Yes._ **

Well, that _was_ sweet, and it was nice to hear about it from him. I counted it as progress that Kageie had shared this information, initiated the conversation, however tiny. Sometimes he did that now, little thoughts or photos from his day. Yesterday I’d guffawed in the locker room after reading the caption that accompanied a photo of a gorgeous, complicated flower arrangement—definitely Kagetora, definitely for something big—an all lowercase **_i don’t get it_**. It made me smile now, remembering it.

My phone chimed in my hand.

**_Are you coming?_ **

**Are you inviting me?  
**

**_Yes._ **

Well, _that_ was certainly something.

**When is the festival?**

**_Now._ **

**…like right now?**

**_No. This afternoon. One._ **

**I’ll be there. I’ll call you when I get to the park.**

**_Okay._ **

I had a great time. Ai was growing up so fast and so well that it did my heart good to see her wonder at the kites dancing in the sky. She was sweet like her father when he unbent. When her mother introduced Kanetsugu to our family I’d thought he was too stiff to be believed until I caught his eyes seeking out hers, lovesick and a little nervous. And then I’d liked him a lot, and he had never made me regret it. He was a solid guy and a devoted father, and he had weathered the loss of his wife as well as—better than—anyone could hope.

I let myself wonder if Kageie was like Kanetsugu at first, if he just needed an anchor and time to unbend. I didn’t think he was that much like him. But I didn’t think an anchor would hurt, either.

We got Ai cotton candy and lemonade and a kite to take home. Pretty ribbon tails for it she could switch out if she wanted. I retied one of her hair ribbons, gone loose from all her exuberant looking up into the sky, and caught Kanetsugu giving me a pained smile as I finished. I sent her to her father to fix the other one. When I turned to find a patch of grass to sit on, Kageie was watching me from his seat on his jacket on the ground, a few feet away.

“Why did you do that?” he asked as I sat next to him. His question was blunt but it was soft-blunt, the kind that might bump but didn’t mean to cut. He seemed more curious than offended. So I told him. He squinted at the father and daughter and said sadly, “I can’t tie nice bows.”

I laughed. It was so sudden and melancholy! What did he care about bows?

“Not everyone can,” I offered. “I think Kanetsugu is better at it than I am.”

Kageie squinted.

“He is,” he said.

I felt my back teeth come together, bracing to be ground. And then I remembered, and I was remembering more quickly each time, what I’d been told about Kageie needing bluntness and being blunt himself. I did a quick breathing exercise my coach had taught me and took stock. My initial reaction was offense, but… Kageie wasn’t wrong. And I didn’t hitch my self-worth to my bow-tying abilities. So this was okay. I just had to take a breath and think through it.

Kageie nudged me with his shoulder. “Yours aren’t bad,” he said.

I didn’t have to think about it to smile.

* * *

At dinner a few nights later, just the two of us, he was fidgety. We were in a comfortable and quiet place; I didn’t know what was up. So I asked. It was almost second nature now to just ask.

“You look nice,” he said, sounding unhappy about it. I was getting used to the occasional disconnect of his voice and his face and his words.

“Thank you,” I said. “I tried to. But your tone of voice makes you seem upset. Are you? Can you tell me why?” Sometimes it was hard to ask without feeling like I was talking to him like I would a child, so I had to remind myself I was asking because I wanted to know how he was feeling and hope that came through.

“I… didn’t dress up,” he said. And he looked miserable about it.

He certainly hadn’t worn anything that looked bad enough to catch my attention when we met outside the restaurant.

“I don’t think you needed to. I wasn’t expecting you to, and this isn’t a place you have to dress up for,” I told him.

He chewed on that, and the inside of his cheek for a minute. I worked on my soup as he thought.

“If I make fun of you,” he said suddenly, “tell me and I’ll stop. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Something about that touched me so deeply I could feel myself blushing.

“I will,” I promised, putting down my spoon and reaching for his hand across the booth. “Thank you. I want you to do the same if you ever feel like I am making fun of you.”

He looked at our hands, and then at me. His pinched expression was replaced by a smile.

I about died.

* * *

After pacing in my apartment like an idiot for far too long, I finally pressed send.

**I have a meet this weekend. Would you like to come?**

**_What would I do?_ **

Breathing exercise, calm down, calm down. It was a fair question.

**Sit in the stands at the pool. Sometimes people cheer for the swimmers they know. You don’t have to do that. You can play on your phone.**

I just want you to see me. I think I’m going to win. I wouldn’t want you there otherwise.

**_Should I bring you flowers?_ **

I did a little dance, a spin. I hugged the phone to my chest. I was a fool.

 **It couldn’t hurt**.

A minute later, I added

**You don’t have to. I would like flowers. But you don’t have to.**

**_Why are you inviting me?_ **

Why _was_ I inviting him?

Deep breath. Type fast. Send before you overthink it.

**I think I am going to win and I want you to see it.**

_**Okay. :)** _

A smiley! Not the emoji, a typed-out smiley.

I was useless the rest of the day.

And the rest of the week I killed practice. I felt shark-sleek and fast.

* * *

He brought flowers. And Kagetora, who had clearly put the flowers together. The latter waved enthusiastically from their seats and the juxtaposition of the two of them (and the flowers) made me laugh. That was welcome, because I felt good but a little nervous.

My coach told me to get serious, so I did. 400 meters as a first event was a respectable challenge and deserved focus. But I sought out my friends, and every time I found Kageie and Kagetora, they were looking right back at me.

At the starting block, I focused. I told myself not to look at anything but the water, and not to think of anything but crushing this freestyle.

Kageie was watching.

The horn blared, and I sliced into the surface of the pool as precisely as I could, as far as I should. The moment of propulsion through the water, the whoosh and the sudden muting, the powerful caress and resistance of the water over the soles of my feet—I knew these things. I swam.

When the meet was over, I found Kageie and Kagetora (and the flowers, I found the flowers first, how on earth had he gotten stalks that _tall_?).

“That was cool,” Kageie said before we greeted one another, and I beamed at him. Kagetora did, too.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You were fastest,” he said.

“I was,” I responded, trying to make the answer more fun than smug.

Kagetora thrust the flowers at Kageie and put his arms around me to squeeze. Ever continental, he kissed my cheeks and gave me a very beautiful, very shrewd smile. Then his composure broke and he was the man who had waved to me from the stands, enthusiastic and cheerful, observations and questions coming rapid fire.

When his energy had run some of its course, he nodded toward Kageie beside us.

Kageie held out the flowers. It was a little hard to see him through them.

I took the vase—heavy!—from him.

“Thank you for coming,” I said. “I’m happy you were here. Would you like to go eat?”

“Yeah,” he said. Small smile. Enough to make me feel bubbly and victorious all over again.

“Yes!” Kagetora said. “Perfect! I want to take you both to one of my favorite places…”

And we were both swept away. Classic Kagetora.

* * *

**_I didn’t like the salad dressing._ **

I smiled. Put the vase of flowers on my coffee table since they touched the ceiling if I put them on the bar.

**Me either. Too sweet.**

**_Do you like swimming?_ **

I thought that was obvious, but I liked that he was asking.

**Yeah. I wanted to compete as soon as my instructors said I was good when I was a kid.**

_**You looked really focused. Kind of mad.** _

**Oh?**

As I was thinking about how to respond to that more fully, my phone dinged with a new message.

_**Yeah.** _

**I am really focused. Not mad. I try to only think about the event, and when I’m swimming I have to think about breathing and moving. So it’s probably the focus that makes me look mad, but I'm not. I feel really good when I'm swimming.  
**

**_Okay_.**

And that was that.


	3. Definitely a date.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ::sunglasses::

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *fanfare*

_**Do you want to go to dinner?** _

!

**Yes!**

**_Fancy._ **

**Yes!**

**_Okay._ **

I waited, but nothing else came. I shut my phone into my locker and tried to focus, tried to keep buoyant in multiple ways.

An hour later I told myself to eat my midpractice snack before checking my phone, but did not. I gasped at the name of the restaurant in the details he’d sent me. And I grinned.

* * *

“You look very nice,” I observed in the lobby. We were waiting to be taken to our table.

“This collar itches,” he said, hooking it with a finger and tugging.

“Do you want to unbutton it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said glumly.

He didn’t move, so I reached for it. He went very still.

“No tie makes this easier,” I murmured, trying to be reassuring.

“You smell different,” he said. By now I was familiar enough with his voice to hear confusion instead of accusation. I was pleased he would notice.

I nodded. “I wore a different perfume for our date.”

His little smile went right to my heart, and my knees.

“Right this way, please,” the sharply-dressed host interrupted.

Our table was at one of the windows, with all the lights of the city on magnificent display. I was glad I’d worn what I had. The host held out my chair and Kageie took his own seat, grabbing the bottle on the table and looking it over critically. When he was finished, he set it down on my side of the table, and I picked it up to inspect myself.

Red currant wine. The color was very familiar.

“I’ve never heard of it,” I told him. “Maybe it’s a house specialty? I heard the Takeda put red everywhere.”

He looked grumpy. Oops. Said the T word.

“I don’t know if they own the restaurant or not,” I said. “I just saw the crest in the lobby and thought maybe...”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“It’s their building,” he said after a moment, his voice stiff. But he was giving me information, and that was good. “And their restaurant. I wasn’t sure about coming here, but I was told it was the best.”

“Did you want to take us to ‘the best’?” I asked with a smile.

“Yeah.”

Oh. Well. Sometimes the bluntness that was his nature meant I got a very clear view of the sweetness of his intentions. It made me happy and it _flustered_ me. I hadn't been flustered like this since it all started, and that almost-kiss had been a couple months ago.

I had some water to give myself something to do. Our waiter decanted the wine and told us it was a gift from a friend. I was pretty sure I knew who that meant. _Flower fairy godfather matchmaker, at it again_. But it was a nice gift, and I knew Kageie was devoted to his boss, so I did not roll my eyes and instead slid my glass a little toward the waiter to be filled.

The first courses were good, the salad dressing just right. Kageie agreed.

Our conversation wasn’t totally fluid but it felt comfortable, and he relaxed as the dinner went on. I probably did, too. We both kept looking out the window; the view was incredible.

As the waiter returned and handed us our hand-lettered dessert cards, another placed a vase on the table, water and a branch resting in it. “Another gift from your friend,” the waiter said, politely inclining his head. “This is—”

“Almond blossoms,” Kageie said, cutting him off.

I think the waiter, with all his impeccable manners, probably nodded and backed away. I was too busy looking at Kageie, surprised and impressed, to take much notice of anyone else. I couldn’t tell they were almond blossoms. I knew the cylinder of the vase was heavy glass, perhaps good quality crystal from the smooth sparkle in the dimpled sides.

“How did you know that?” I asked, trying to sound interested instead of skeptical. Kageie didn’t have anything to do with flowers directly at his job; he was responsible for the Uesugi tower and the coolers and the greenhouse floor—floor! I was still kind of awed by that— of the building, but it had become very obvious soon after we got together that he didn’t care much about flowers.

“From a painting,” he said, staring at the buds and the just-blooming flowers that ended each point of the branch. They were pretty, but I still wondered.

There was a thin lavender ribbon tied around the lip of the vase. So thin I didn’t see the lettering on it at first, and when I turned the vessel to look more closely Kageie rolled his eyes and untied it.

“Might as well read it,” he said, handing it to me with a sigh. “He’ll ask later.”

I smiled.

_Just wanted to make sure you were both aware! This is one of Kageie’s favorites._ The note was signed with a tiny sketch of a sakura flower.

The ribbon in my hand smelled heavily of incense. But mingling with the aroma of good food all around us and the fragrance of the blossoms between us, it was just right.  

We roasted Kagetora’s meddling a bit. Lightly. Kageie seemed okay with it. He was smiling ruefully.

When dessert came he elaborated that the painting was a van Gogh he saw often.

“Is there a print somewhere in your office?” I asked. I wasn’t familiar with the painting he was talking about.

“No,” he said. And for a while that was that, but dessert was so good I was content to moan around the chocolate on my fork, dark and decadent and laced with fruit and a spice I did not know.

Kageie took my hand as we left the table, and helped me with my coat when we collected it from the check. He stood behind me and held up the shoulders while I pulled my curls out from the coat. It felt comfortable and exciting at the same time. When he was done, I took his hand, and we walked back to my place.

A block from home, Kageie stopped, and nudged me with his shoulder over to the smooth glass of one of the posh storefronts.

My playful laugh died when he leaned toward me, the glass at my back, his body close to my front. One of his arms was above our heads on the glass, the other hand beside my shoulder. _Fingerprints_ , I thought, _he’ll leave fingerprints_.

Kageie seemed to be searching my face. He was frowning a little.

“Hey,” he said.

“…Hey,” I repeated. His eyes looked exactly like the wine that had been waiting for us earlier. 

“Is it okay for me to kiss you now?”  

I gripped his hair, more on one side than the other and silkier than water, whispered “Yeah,” and pulled him to my mouth.

When we got to my apartment a few minutes later, flushed and giddy and nervous, I asked “Is this what you want?”

And he said “Yeah,” his voice so sure and soft and so meaning _of course_ that it gave me happy, tender goosebumps.

As I told him what to do to please me and he showed me methods of his own devising long into the night, that happy, tender feeling stayed lodged behind my ribs. Swelled. Overflowed in a cascade I had hoped at but couldn't have imagined.

And Kageie was my anchor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The painting is [Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book](https://www.wikiart.org/en/vincent-van-gogh/blossoming-almond-branch-in-a-glass-with-a-book-1888), and in this story the original is in Kenshin/Kagetora's office. ;) I strongly encourage you to look at all of [ van Gogh's almond blossom paintings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond_Blossoms), they're treats to look at!
> 
> At some point I'll write that smut and put it up here.


End file.
